The Washington Post has repeatedly used its news section (e.g
here and here) to hype fears about the budget dispute
that it likes to call the "fiscal cliff." (Since the actual
impact of waiting until after the end of the year to reach a deal
is minor, most objective commentators would not use the term
"cliff" to refer to the deadline.) If the consequences of waiting
until after the end of the year to make a deal, when the politics
shift to President Obama's favor, can be portrayed as
sufficiently dire then the Post presumably hopes that it can
force a deal that will be closer to the Republicans' terms.

It was pushing this line again today with a piece warning of a disaster if Congress does
not pass a fix to the alternative minimum tax by the end of the
year. The issue is that the tax was not adjusted for inflation
for 2012 so many middle income households would be subject to the
alternative minimum tax who were not intended to be hit by it.

The piece does its best to overstate the dire consequences for
waiting after the end of the year. Most importantly it gives the
number of people affected and then gives the average tax
additional liability telling us in the second paragraph:

"Unless Congress acts by the end of the year, more than
26 million households will for the first time face the AMT,
which threatens to tack $3,700, on average, onto taxpayers’ bills
for the current tax year."

In fact most of these 26 million households would face very
limited tax increases, but some taxpayers may find themselves
with a substantial increase in liabilities. The piece also warns
that if Congress waits until after the end of the year to resolve
the issue then refunds could be delayed by a month or two. It
then informs readers that many taxpayers use refunds to pay
essential bills like gas and electric bills and will risk having
service disconnected if they have to wait longer for their
refunds. Of course the refunds will go almost exclusively to
families with incomes of more than $75,000 a year. It is not
likely that many people in this income category are facing the
cutoff of utilities.

The piece also raises the risk that many taxpayers may be subject
to penalties for failing to withhold based on their higher
liability. It would be a very simple matter for Congress to
include a provision in any measure passed in January that
exempted taxpayers from such penalties.

This is the sort of piece that makes it clear that Post would
like to see the budget dispute resolved on conditions favorable
to the Republicans. It doesn't belong in the news section of a
serious newspaper.